The full quotation, from a NYT op-ed this morning about the great Italian novelist Ignazio Silone and his experience of a devastating 1915 earthquake like that which struck the Abruzzo yesterday, runs:

“Only loss is universal, and true cosmopolitanism in this world must be based on suffering.”

The column is by Stanislao G. Pugliese, a professor of European history at Hofstra University and the author of the forthcoming “Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone.”

If the biography is anything like the op-ed, Pugliese will convey Silone’s voice very well. He recalls the wolves, for example, which roamed the Appenines until relatively recently, providing the chilling ending to “Bread and Wine,” for example, but also lending real drama to the story of St. Francis and the wolf, which today sounds like a class outing to the petting zoo. (Perhaps a more convincing parallel today would be the views of suburban homeowners in the tri-state area who are getting anxious over hungry black bears emerging from hibernation?)

And of course there is Silone’s concern for justice, which led to various hegiras during his lifetime:  

“In an earthquake,” Silone wrote decades after his experience, “everyone dies: rich and poor, learned and illiterate, authorities and the people. An earthquake accomplishes what words and laws promise and never achieve: the equality of all. But it is an ephemeral equality, for when fear had died down, collective misfortune became the opportunity for even greater injustices.”   

Read it here. And news update here.